Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi wins placement amongst the Top 100 Most Powerful Arabs in 2021. Read more »
English is gaining ground in the Arab world – at Arabic’s expense
With each passing year, the decline of spoken Arabic is only growing. Steps are being taken to preserve it, but this continues to be an uphill battle. In this article, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi argues for the importance of globalising and modernising without losing our language. Read more »
A pilgrimage to remember Iraqi artist Jewad Selim
In this article Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi profiles Jewad Selim, who was a central figure in Iraq’s 20th century cultural scene, responsible for some of the country’s most important post-revolution art. Read more »
Investigating the Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art
Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi joined the Middle East Initiative as the Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar. One of the ways he has engaged with the Harvard community and shared his expertise during the fall semester is through his study group titled “Investigating the Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art.” The study group provided students and fellows from across Harvard with the opportunity to understand Middle Eastern politics from a unique perspective: through the study of the region’s art production. Read more »
The UAE’s J Curve
Successful nations are born of hard sacrifices made to attain giant leaps. In the world of finance, a J Curve is a trendline in which an initial loss is immediately followed by a dramatic gain. In this article, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi discusses this phenomenon as it relates to the formation of the UAE. Read more »
Building Sharjah
In a new book, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi and Todd Reisz trace the early boom days of modern Sharjah, drawing on personal archives as well as crowd-sourced photographs and documents. Read more »